


Language Arts

by an_sceal



Category: 21 Jump Street (Movies)
Genre: Ableist Language, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1841860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_sceal/pseuds/an_sceal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenko's become fluent in a language Schmidt doesn't seem to realize they're speaking, but it's not helping them understand each other any better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Language Arts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eleanor_lavish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/gifts), [airspaniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/gifts).



> A big thank you to [Wolfinglet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfinglet) for the beta! <3

            Jenko's hips are rolling against Schmidt's ass, his chest pressed against the sweaty back under him as he balances on one arm.  He's got the other wrapped around Schmidt's waist, a firm grip on the heavy cock in his hand, and if he were a poetic man he'd try to find the right words for how crazy scared he is that it's going to end soon, that this is going to be over, that they'll shoot their loads and he'll have to leave this weird, perfect place.

            The thing is, though, that he's no poet, and the best he can manage is a snarled, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, just take it, fuck," growled between Schmidt's shoulders, his fingers curling into the sheets because he's got to hold on to something before the world gets away from him.  His thrusts are rhythmic and hard, and Schmidt's meeting every one of them, totally silent in a way that unnerves him more than anything else about the whole goddamn night.  "Say something," he begs, but it winds up sounding like an order.

            Schmidt's mouth opens and a whimper comes out, enough to make Jenko's next thrust stall out, wondering if he's misread everything and this is hurting more than it should.  Except the dick in his hand is still hard, and Schmidt's shoving his ass back to make up for his distraction. 

            "Can't talk.  Getting fucked to death."  Schmidt's whine is cut off as Jenko pushes back into him.  He's surprised when the hand he's got on Schmidt's dick is pushed away, and he lets go reluctantly.  He wants that connection back, wants to ride this out and feel like he's not in it alone, like they aren't just Tab A and Slot B, but fuck if he can get that out when Schmidt's reedy voice is bubbling up from the mattress again.

            "How are you so…fucking stupid—" There's more sounds after that, the grunts and moans as Schmidt comes without warning, but it's the words that echo through Jenko's head, make him turn his face away and flinch right before he blows his load into the condom.  Schmidt doesn't seem to notice—fair enough, it's not like Jenko could even spell his own name right now.

            Or apparently any other time.

            It's weird between them after the heavy breathing subsides; Schmidt keeps sucking in air like he's about to say something, and Jenko just wants to get away, fast and far, before his brain can latch on to those words and tattoo them into his thoughts.

            He rolls away first, even though Schmidt's just flopped an arm over his stomach, and he tries not to remember that crazy moment, just minutes ago, when he'd wanted something to hold on to.  Something to prove it was really happening.  He's got his proof now, bitter as the rise of bile in his throat.  He'd wonder how he could be so stupid, but Schmidt's got that question pinned down, so there's no point in turning his tiny little brain loose to find the answer. 

            "Dude, remember how this wasn't going to be weird?  Because I remember that.  That was a promise I heard before your dick ever wound up in my ass."  Schmidt's struggling to sit up, the cheap mattress dipping under them, and Jenko ignores the whuff of surprise as he stands.

            "What?  Dude, it's not weird.  This is the best part of two dudes, right?  We're cool."  To placate Schmidt, he turns around and plasters on a huge, dopey smile.  The edges of it are so fake they hurt, tearing at the corners of his mouth like a lie he's not really telling.  "You can stay or whatever.  I'm gonna grab a shower." 

            Schmidt doesn't say anything else, and Jenko absolutely doesn't lock the bathroom door by accident, or turn the water on a degree shy of scalding.

            That would just be stupid.

 

* * *

 

            They don’t actually live together.  Schmidt has his own apartment and everything, full of carnivorous plants, video games, and a surprising wealth of graphic novels (surprising to Jenko, anyway, who never thought he liked comics).  Sure, maybe they both get tired after work and training, so they’ll trade off cooking.  And yeah, okay, usually they both wind up crashing where they land, ultimately resulting in paying rent on places neither one of them sees half the time.

            It’s possible that at some point, Schmidt made a move.  Jenko has been dry humping the guy since about ten minutes after they hooked up at the academy, and by the time Schmidt shoves a hand down his pants and a tongue down his throat, there really aren't a lot of hard lines left between them.  He likes things fuzzy, likes unexpected handjobs before dinner, and lazy, self-satisfied evenings stretched out on the couch, trading jabs and commentary on _RuPaul's Drag Race_.  He likes waking up with Schmidt drooling on his pillow, and the way both their beds smell like the hair gel they share now. 

            Lots of things that should be easy have always been hard for Jenko, but not this.  Everything about them should be hard to understand, hard to make work—their backgrounds, their partnership, their friendship, but instead it's the easiest fucking thing in the world.  They're a covalent bond, him and Schmidt, and for the first time in his entire life, he'd thought maybe he'd figured something out before anyone else.  He's never been the guy who read ahead in the book, but this time he'd turned a page, and he'd been enjoying the strange idea that Schmidt needed to catch up.

            Except they aren't even reading the same book.

            "Not that one," he says, pulling the jar of mayo out of their cart.  Because they don't live together, but they eat together probably five nights a week, so they shop together.  He reaches for the organic kind made with olive oil, and Schmidt makes a face.

            "Dude, the other kind is low fat."

            "Yeah, I know that.  I can fucking read.  It's also loaded with sugar and high fructose corn syrup."  He dumps the mayonnaise in the cart, so pissed he doesn't care that he's crushing a loaf of bread.  "Buy whatever you want."

            Schmidt moves the bread to the top of the cart, giving him a weird look.  "Is this because Molly—"

            "This is because _you_."  His voice gets low, dark and bitter like the shitty coffee at Jump Street; the stuff they drink to remember they're adults.  He drops some mustard into the cart and it bounces, rolling around.  What he'd rather do is knock everything off the shelves.  He hasn't been this angry in years, and it's ridiculous.  It's stupid.

            So Jenko walks away.  He closes his eyes and barrels down the aisle, gets knocked in the hip by someone's cart as he heads to the door, and all the while Schmidt's voice is following him.  The humid evening saps away his resolve somewhere in the middle of the parking lot, so he stops at the end of a line of cars and leans against a minivan, staring into the distance and wondering when he became the kind of guy who got angry and walked away.  Like every argument was unfinished, and could be picked up again at any moment.  Then again, he'd learned from the best.

            "Jenko?"  Schmidt hesitates, his voice changing to the kind of tone that makes 'I fucking cherish you' sound like something people actually say.  "Greg?"

            He will engage this.  He will turn around and meet this head-on, and he will feel every goddamn second of it, because that's how he thinks life should be lived.  Even in high school, when not caring was the safest, sanest option, he was aggressively, _actively_ apathetic. 

Jenko can learn to evade the echo of faint praise, the memory of his dad's biting congratulations. _"Not bad, for a retard."  "I've got plans that night, kid.  Didn't think you'd actually graduate, so I signed up for a bowling tournament."_

If Schmidt is so much smarter, why can't he figure out what Jenko already knows?  Why doesn't he see that all of his words matter more than they should, and in this world, that kind of power comes attached to a wrecking ball?

Greg Jenko's in love with a guy named Morton ( _Morton,_ for fuck's sake!) Schmidt, and he doesn't want to feel stupid for believing that shouldn't hurt.

            "Are you okay?"  Schmidt sounds worried.  He wonders how long he's been silent—knows it's too long and getting longer. 

            "Do you want to fuck me?" he asks, the words falling out of his mouth as he whirls around.  Behind Schmidt, a woman with a baby in her cart is paused by the minivan, staring at him with wide eyes.  Thank Korean Jesus, her kid isn't old enough to understand.

            "I…"  Schmidt glances at the woman and clams up.

            She waves a hand between them, her eyebrows lifting.   "No, no, go ahead.  _Do_ you want to fuck him?"  She laughs quickly, before Schmidt can stutter anything else out.  "Never mind, that's a stupid question.  Of course you do.  I could poll ten random strangers, and they'd all say yes."  Her son gurgles at her, blowing a spit bubble that she wipes away with her sleeve as she smiles and coos baby talk.  "Everyone would fuck him if they had the chance, wouldn't they?  Oh, Mama would.  Yes she would!"

            Her eyes narrow slightly, and she looks back up at Schmidt.  "Since the answer is obviously yes, the real question is why he has to ask at all.  You must be speaking different languages _and_ melting my Ben and Jerry's.  Go figure it out."  She shoos them away, flicking both her hands at them like they're raccoons in her trash can.  Schmidt moves, and Jenko follows him, spotting the faded Nine Inch Nails sticker on her bumper on his way past.  She winks at him as she loads a bag of groceries into her car. 

            They wind up standing next to his Mustang, staring at each other like this is something new.  It doesn't feel new to him.  It feels worn-in and comfortable and right, except for the part where Schmidt thinks he's a fucking moron, and it keeps poking at him like a tag on the side seam of a shirt. Why the hell do they even put those there?

            "Is it weird that I’m jealous right now?  It’s weird, right?”  Schmidt’s nose wrinkles and he waves a hand at nothing.   “Would you just tell me what I did already, before we fuck things up again? 

            His stomach clenches as the answer rides his tongue, and neither lets go.  He wants his anger back.  Anger made _“You still think I’m stupid, and it makes me feel like shit”_ seem like a reasonable thing.  Jenko doesn’t hate himself or anything (because seriously, he’s pretty awesome), except sometimes he gets the feeling there are different kinds of naked, and only some of them are comfortable.  Naked-in-a-parking-lot-with-Schmidt isn’t comfortable, or fun.  Naked-in-bed-with-Schmidt is fun.  Naked-and-alone-in-bed-with-Schmidt is his problem.  Saying it, though, so that it’s out there and between them, defenseless, isn’t just taking off his clothes, it’s peeling back his skin.

            Schmidt’s staring at him, voice scratching a needle across the record playing in Jenko’s stripper brain.  “Just tell me if you’re having a heterosexual freak out so I can duck before you punch me, okay?”  The minivan lady pulls slowly past them, and Schmidt points at the car after it leaves.  "Or you could probably follow her home and hit that to assert your masculinity.  I don't want to lose this—" Schmidt stops talking, cutting off sharply.

            "I thought I was the stupid one," Jenko says, unable to tell where his anger leaves off, blends into the realization that they might be in this together after all, if they can just figure out how. 

            "Don’t say that.  You're not stupid—"

            "That's what you said, the other night.  That's why—"

            "You _idiot_.  And fuck, I don't mean that in a derogatory way, except you _idiot_ , I said 'how are you so fucking stupid _hot_?' because seriously, have you seen you?  And you wanted me to _talk_ while I—I thought that's what you wanted.  I thought you wanted a reminder that you could have literally—do I mean literally?  I totally do.  You're bi, you could _literally_ have almost anyone, and I thought you were like, reminding me.  And I know, dude—" Schmidt's out of air, still gesturing between them, eyes a little wild.

            "Nah, dude, I want you."  He grabs Schmidt's flapping hand and uses the leverage to pull them together into a hug that's weirdly abrupt and completely without equal, because they've never done it before.  They horse around and they fuck, but they don't really touch each other, not in public like this, and he suddenly gets where maybe this is all the wrong way around to the most right thing ever.  "But I don't want to be someone you're fucking because I'm pretty and dumb.  That shit's unsustainable."

            Schmidt, face buried against Jenko's chest, is still trying to talk.  Jenko lets go, and yeah, okay, maybe he looks around to see if anyone is staring at them.  They're cops, and they still do undercover work.  Being made on the job because someone recognizes them as the two guys from the Safeway parking lot isn't the best career decision. 

            Schmidt rubs a hand under his chin, his expression something Jenko can't read.  "So you think we're…sustainable."

            "Like organic weed and biodiesel, motherfucker."  He grins, the weight on his shoulders fifty pounds lighter when Schmidt grins back. 

            They don't buy groceries that night, but they go to his place and he gets a definitive answer to the question of whether or not Schmidt wants to fuck him.  They feast on leftover egg rolls, and when they wake up the next morning the apartment smells like Hunan Palace. 

 

* * *

 

            They have to get groceries eventually, but Schmidt's eating with his parents, so Jenko makes the run next time.  He's on his way into the store when he spots a minivan in the next row over, faded Nine Inch Nails sticker peeling on the right side of the bumper.  He makes a split second decision, sprinting into the store and emerging a few minutes later with a bouquet of flowers that he leaves under the van's windshield wiper.  The note he's tucked into the daisies says, _"Thanks for helping me translate."_

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains one use, via memory/flashback, of an ableist slur. It is not spoken by either of the main characters.
> 
> I'm cheating a bit, in that this fits the pretty loose prompts left by both these people, but both of them inspired me while I wrote it, so there y'go.


End file.
